


It's Tough To Be A God

by RadiantMoth



Category: Groundhog Day - Minchin/Rubin
Genre: Angst, Attempted Suicide, Implied/Referenced Sex, god AU, i think that's all the tags i need but I'll update them if I remember I need to, it's groundhog day everybody, the teen might change to mature depending on how graphic i write things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-09-27 23:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17171945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadiantMoth/pseuds/RadiantMoth
Summary: Being a weather god, it's tough to be physically stuck in a town as small as Punxsutawney. After a few hundred years, things have gotten pretty dull for Phil. So who can blame him if he wants to spice things up?Updates Mondays and Fridays (Hopefully)





	1. Cloudburst

Something was wrong. Philemon opened his eyes. All he could see was night sky framed by trees and… He couldn't feel anything. No, that wasn't right. He couldn’t feel anything in a few miles in any direction. It was _stifling_.

He scrambled to his feet, trying to properly get his bearings. What was going on? Where the fuck was he? Why couldn’t he fucking _feel_ anything?

“Guys, if this is a joke it isn't very _funny_ ,” he singsonged, a clear note of anger in his voice. “Where the fuck even is this?”

No response. One would think gods would have a much more reliable communication system. He huffed, willing a powerful gust of wind up that swept him to the top of one of the nearby trees. “If you motherfuckers don't show your sorry faces right now I'll find them myself and shove icicles into your eyes!”

The feeling of wrong increased. Something started buzzing just under Philemon's skin as if to make up for the lack of external sensations. He used to be able to sense weather on the other side of the world, what was going _on_? Gods pulled sick jokes sometimes--hell, Philemon pulled most of them--but this one just seemed plain sinister.

It was becoming all too much. He’d never experienced anything like this, in thousands of years of existence, and he didn’t even know where to begin to deal with this. How could he fix this? 

Philemon didn’t even need to breathe, but he was hyperventilating. He dropped from the tree, not even bothering to fix the old shirt he usually tried to keep immaculate. What was wrong with him, why was he doing this? Why was his mind looping in endless questions that all led to the same, answer that he didn’t even know?

Philemon screamed.

And that's when the skies tore open.

* * *

Philemon had been laying in the rain in a dazed stupor for a few days now. A few weeks? Maybe even months? He never paid attention to the passage of time, especially not now. He was busy trying to absorb every and any kind of stimuli from his surroundings as he could. The constant drum of rain helped but it wasn't enough. Nothing felt like enough.

He nearly vaporized several trees with lightning, thrashed the river with wind until the damn thing was nearly leaping out of its bank. If he were closer to the ocean he'd probably be causing hurricanes. 

He discovered the source of all this anguish, too. There was a fucking _barrier_. An invisible wall that kept him bound to a few miles in diameter. If the surrounding nature had taken a pummeling from him, that barrier had earned as much wrath as his scattered mind could focus.

His mind was hovering in between numbness and hyperactivity, and the split was torture. He couldn’t decide on which one would be the better, less painful option. 

Eventually, Philemon settled on numb. He spent his days in a hazy state, wandering through the woods in the set parameters he’d been oh so generously supplied. Years passed by undisturbed. Maybe days. Again, Philemon wasn’t one for accurate time perception. Especially not in a state like thing. Eventually though, he was pulled out of his deep dissociative state

Something shook his shoulder and Philemon looked up blearily. A man stood over him, holding a lantern that threw harsh shadows against scared features. “Wh…” Was he laying in snow? Since when was there snow?

“Oh thank heavens.” Philemon allowed the man to prop him up against a tree. “I was afraid you were dead.”

“No, I'm okay I-” Philemon's voice broke. He sounded horrible from who knows how long of not talking.

“You're laying on the forest floor in the dead of winter.” He took off a long leather coat and threw it around Philemon's shoulders. “It's a miracle you're not dead. How far have you wandered from home?”

“F-Far.” He hated this. Hated being shown kindness by something so far below him.

“What's your name?”

“Phil-” His voice cracked just in time for him to realize his name might seem a bit strange. “Phil. Just Phil.”

He received a smile that was rather patronizing to Philem- Phil. Had to get used to _that_ now. “I'm John.” John looped an arm around him and started to lift Phil up. “Now let's get you to Punxsutawney.”

“... Punxsutawney?”

“Well, it's the nearby town. It's not too much more than half a mile from here.”

_There was a town in this shit hole?_ How long had he been dissociating in the fucking woods?

“I don’t think that’s necessary, I can just-”

“I cannot leave you out in this weather in good conscience. You don’t even have shoes.”

“What, of course I have-” Phil looked down and stopped.

Fucking dammit.

* * *

Punxsutawney, as it turned out, sucked! There were barely more than a hundred people in town, and most of them were shitty. Then again, Phil thought humans in general were shitty. Everyone barely let him do anything due to his “low body temperature” but that’s just how his body _was_. Theoretically he could just erase everyone’s memory of him using his complimentary god memory erasing powers but he was way too tired to do anything like that. 

Whatever instincts he’d gained from years of creating weather had kicked in during his dissociation episode, not that Phil would have cared either way. It was only a few miles of land, who gave a shit if it got burned down in a forest fire of if all the plants died of overwatering from rain. A neat tip, to keep in mind if he ever wanted to do that again, but it was also very draining and Phil felt like he’d just bench pressed several continents.

And the boredom. He was _so_ bored. It might be better if he could entertain himself but still, no one let him do anything. That, and he’d blow through the entire town in a month. Possibly literally.

Phil’s boredom and exhaustion had caused the weather to have a few… kinks. Maybe some hail that was a bit too big to be reasonable. Maybe sun that was a bit too much for a winter season in an area like this.

Oh well. He’d deal with it later.

* * *

Well, a few decades later and Phil was still stuck in Punxsutawney. He’d moved out of town a long time ago, settling for wandering around the town like a cryptid. On the bright side, the town’s population had more than doubled, which gave Phil a much larger dating pool. Well, dating wasn’t the right word. It was more along the lines of fucking-people-and-then-erasing-their-memories-so-there-wasn’t-any-complicated-strings-attached. 

He did have to be careful though. Removing memories was like stitching up curtains between reality and blissful ignorance. Small tears were easy enough to patch up, but seeing something like, oh, a man conjuring lightning from the sky to strike the house of someone who had punched him was impossible to fix without either having noticeable damage or thread that came undone at the slightest pushing. Not that Phil would ever do anything like that.

It was a comfortable enough cycle. Repetitive, but hedonism usually made up for that. Humans sucked, but they were nothing if not great distractions.

And he didn’t _only_ have sex to entertain himself. A little while ago he’d pulled something of a prank convincing people a groundhog could predict the coming of spring. He’d pulled out all the stops, bullshitting about “groundhogese” and an acacia wood cane. And, of course, they named the groundhog Phil. _That_ part was more of an accident and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but y’know, things happened. 

However, after awhile he started to notice a pattern. Phil used to be able to spend a few months with people before they got fed up with his shining personality. Those few months turned into two, then one, then two weeks, and now Phil was lucky if he could get just over half a week in before he got slapped.

He had a few theories. One, the problem was himself and he was slowly dissolving into a psychotic mindstate due to his long stay in what to him was a small cardboard box. But that required the problem being Phil so that postulate was out the window.

Two, it was the people. Generational shifts and all that. Humans changed pretty fast… but not that fast.

So if it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t the people, it must be some third, external source Phil wasn’t quite aware of. He’d have to figure that out pretty soon, probably.

* * *

Phil didn't particularly remember what actions in his day lead to a man straddling his waist and lazily kissing a daisy chain of marks from his chest to his face, but hey. He definitely wasn't complaining.

Far more… _heated_ actions had already passed, leaving Phil to just melt into the bed while the man --David, or something like that-- traced small circles with his thumb just below Phil’s ear.

“So?” David hummed against Phil’s neck.

“That was… great.” Phil mostly slept with women, but in his opinion it was rather hard to be immortal without at least occasionally dipping back into the other pool.

“Good, good.” He sighed. “You know I haven’t… I mean it’s Punxsutawney. It’s a small town.”

“You did fine.” Phil said assuringly

David laughed. “You're wonderful,” He breathed. “Stay forever.”

The whole room shifted. Forever. Phil was going to be here for… forever? The sudden realization, no, remembrance clasped inside of his chest and stole away the breath he didn't really need. Forever.

“Phil?” Fingers gently threaded through his hair and he jerked back.

“I have to go,” Phil rasped, sitting up.

David got up from his waist. “Hey, are you o-”

“I’m _fine_ ,” He snapped. “Don’t… don’t talk to me again.”

“What? Did I do something wrong? Aren’t you at least going to stay for the night?”

Phil tugged on the pants that had been discarded across the room long ago. “No, I’m not.” The shirt went on next, buttoned up haphazardly by shaking hands. 

“Listen, I-”

“Gods, just shut up!” 

Phil swept back in close, kissing him deeply. When he pulled back David had the dazed, trance-like look on his face of someone who just had a portion of their memory erased. A pit grew in Phil stomach. He couldn’t even keep his relationships together for a _day_ anymore.

He turned away and grabbed his jacket. For the first time in his life he felt… Cold. But it wasn’t anything Phil couldn’t fix, couldn’t handle. Maybe next time he got into bed with someone it would be enough.

Maybe next time.

Next time.

* * *

“So you’ve never seen Ghostbusters two?”

Phil paused from fixing his shirt to cover up some of the hickeys. “I have not.” He was not going to confess that hadn’t seen Ghostbusters either. Or really any movie. He didn’t exactly have human currency or a good grasp on modern technology.

Joelle laughed. “Okay, you have to come back to my place and watch it. I have it on VHS.”

“Uh.” Phil didn’t normally do things like this. Usually after sex they just… parted ways, or Phil erased their memories. Why was he freezing up now? “You really don’t have to do that.”

“Please, I insist. It’s one of my favorite movies, and I haven’t done something like this in, well, forever.”

“Alright, I guess.”

“Great! My car’s out back.”

Phil bit back a grimace. He hated cars. The feeling of riding in one was highly uncomfortable to him, but he didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of people possibly see him flying with the aid of wind, so he didn’t say anything.

He spent the car ride staring at the horizon and digging his fingernails into his palm. Thankfully, given the very small area of the town, the drive didn’t take very long and Joelle was unlocking her front door within fifteen minutes.

“Ignore the mess,” She said, pushing a cardboard box that said “silverware” in thick lettering aside with her foot. “I’m moving out pretty soon so I’ve been packing. The TV up, but we are gonna have to sit on some blankets.”

She moved around more boxes and laid out a quilt on the floor. Another glance back up at him, two other blankets in hand. “Do you want one? It can get pretty cold.”

“No, I’m okay, I don’t get bothered by the cold much.” Perks of being a weather god.

“If you say so!” She dropped on of the blankets on the floor and the other back into the box she’d pulled it from. “Give me a sec, I think I’ve got some crackers and pate.” 

After another few minutes of set up, they were finally in the dark with no light source except for the screen of the television. The pate was not the best food Phil had ever tasted, but it certainly wasn’t the worst and it wasn’t as if his personal standards were high.

It was… strange. Such an intimate gesture of sitting on the floor and watching just passable special effects. And neither of them were _expecting_ anything of each other. There was no deal, no means to an end. 

“So what's the verdict?” Joelle asked through a mouthful of food about halfway through the film.

“It's real weird.”

“It's Ghostbusters, what do you expect! The first one’s got a giant marshmallow man ravaging the streets of New York!”

...Maybe Phil should pay more attention to movies.

“Listen, I know what will make it better.” She ducked out of the room and came back with a little baggie. “I got some weed.”

“Oh my god, you're my favorite person.” Coming on a little strong, but Phil was always one for laying it on thick and they _were_ making out in an alleyway not too much more than an hour ago. Either way, Joelle had in fact shot higher in Phil's favorite mortal list. Drugs were heaven sent for him, a rare but effective way of filling the void of understimulation he was always experiencing. At least partially. 

The more the better.

“I go first, it's my stuff,” Joelle said. 

As soon as she finished and passed the joint his way, Phil took a long drag. A few more trade offs, and Ghostbusters started to be a lot funnier.

“Is the movie good now?” Joelle asked.

“Oh yea. Totally.” He shoved another cracker in his mouth.

By the end of the movie, Phil wasn’t sure what he thought about it. About any of this. There was an awfully long gap in between when the credits ended and anyone said something. Maybe because they didn't know what to say, maybe because they were scared to say it. So Phil started.

“I've been in this town for hundreds of years, and I still don't know what I'm doing or how to get out.” He laid down on his back, searching for patterns in the cracks in the ceiling.

“God, I feel you there,” Joelle sighed. “I think I should have left this town a long time ago. Gone to college, or on a tour around the country or something. Small towns are just real easy ruts to get stuck in.”

Phil opened his mouth to speak, but had to stop when he realized he was tearing up. Rain started to patter against a distant window. “Yea, I know,” He simply said when he was confident his voice wouldn't shake. “Hey you don't, like, hate me or anything, right?”

“I mean you're pretty cool in my book. I gave you weed and pate. Why do you ask?”

“This is just the longest conversation I've held with someone in a while, is all.”

“Pretty sure our conversation before making out was just as long.”

“Then this is the longest relationship I've held with someone in a while.”

“Oh.” She was silent for a very long time. Almost long enough to let Phil think he'd ruined everything. “I'm sorry. That must be really hard.”

It was. “I'm okay.”

“We can like, uh, be pen pals after I move? You can give me your home number and-”

“I don't have a home number,” Phil said. “Or an address.”

“Fuck, dude, are you really okay?”

Without a house? Of course, it took acts of godly strength to injure him, this was just like sleeping on the couch. In general? Phil might never be okay again, and he had to wonder if he was okay to begin with.

No, no, that was an overreaction. He was fine, just in the middle of a rough patch. All of this was just the weed talking.

“You're rambling,” Joelle hummed.

“How much did I say?”

“It was mostly unintelligible.” She snorted. Outside of his peripheral vision he heard shuffling. “Get over here, you're going to be my teddy bear for the night.”

He didn't move, but that didn't stop Joelle from crawling over, wrapping her arms around him, and tucking Phil's head under her chin. “Man, you’re a really shitty teddy bear, y’know that? You’ve got like no body heat.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Normally Phil wouldn’t say anything about that, but he said it as a favor for her being so nice to him all night.

“Yea, but I think you need this.”

He didn’t respond. He might as well humor her.

* * *

Joelle never happened again. Joelle was an anomaly. Joelle was a mistake.

He was pretty bored, for a while. Spent a little bit of time disassociating in the woods again, but not nearly as long as last time. His two hundredth anniversary of arriving in Punxsutawney was coming up in a few years. Good old Groundhog Day. Maybe this time he’d abstain from fucking a third of the population and go more for drinking the body weight of a third of the population.

Whooooo, party…

Phil should probably start keeping himself busy until then.


	2. Diamond Dust

Rita kind of loved small towns. A short escape from the hustle and bustle of big cities. Plus _trees_ and _open areas_. It was amazing. Okay, sure, Rita may be riding the high of her first remote broadcast a little, but Punxsutawney was still a cute town.

“Ah! Larry!” She grinned as the cameraman walked out of the Bed and Breakfast. “How’s Scott doing?”

“He’s fine, a little bit under the weather--no pun intended--but y’know,” He rubbed his hands together. “Said he’d be fine by tomorrow for the broadcast.”

“Aw, that’s too bad…” Rita checked her phone for the time. Five o’clock. “Hey, I’m gonna head down to the diner for some coffee, do you want to come?”

“God, I’d really like to but I’m kind of tired from the drive up. I’m just gonna stop by the drugstore for some Nyquil and go to sleep for the next twelve hours. But if they have cinnamon rolls…?”

“I’ll get you a cinnamon roll,” Rita laughed.

“Thanks, Rita, you’re the best. I’ll pay you back in the morning!”

He waved, turning to walk down the street. Rita stuck her hands in her pockets and started in the direction she’d seen a diner. It was nice to be in a place where there wasn’t fifty McDonalds packed into three square miles. Did Punxsutawney even have a McDonalds?

A quick Google search said yes. A few people waved as she walked down the street. Man, people in this town were very cheerful. She did suppose that tomorrow was a pretty big day for them, so it wasn’t too strange. Not that she was complaining. Rita would rather have every single person say hello than everyone be flippant or mean spirited.

When she reached the diner, she found it was pretty cute. The glass door showed a cozy area just beyond and some sparkly decorations were hung outside. The guy laying face down in the snow nearby was a weird touch though.

Wait.

“Oh my god!” Rita scrambled over to where a man in a long black coat was lying in the snow. There wasn’t any bodily fluids staining the white fluff, be it vomit or blood so that must be a good sign, right? She didn’t have to call an ambulance yet. “Are you okay?!”

No reply. Oh no, no, no. She rolled him over and was immediately rewarded with a stink eye from a surprisingly conscious man. “What the fuck?”

Rita blinked. “Wh- Me? Is that to me?”

“ _Yes_ , it’s to you. I thought that I’d told all you people to just leave me alone when I’m doing shit like this.”

“What? I’ve never even met you before, what are you talking about?”

He squinted at her for a long while. “No… we haven’t, have we?” He sighed and started to roll over again. “Well, leave me alone when I’m doing shit like this.”

“No!” Rita caught his shoulder and flipped him onto his back again. “You’re going to get hypothermia, I can’t let you stay out here in good conscience!” 

Now he was giving her a _really_ weird look. “Listen, why do you give a shit if I get hypothermia or not, if I can even get hypothermia in the first place.”

_If he can even get hypothermia in the first place_? Rita was feeling more and more like she needed to admit this man to a hospital. “It’s just a nice thing to do, okay?”

“Yea, okay.” He rolled the opposite way to resume his face down position. “Have a nice day.”

“Can you at least come inside for a few minutes so I know you’re ok- Shit!” Rita managed to grab her hat before a sudden gust of wind blew it off.

“Uuugh! Fine!” He got up in the angriest way Rita had ever seen, if that was possible. “I can’t do any fuckin’ thing without some brats kicking me or weirdos asking me if I’m okay but fine I guess I’ll take some time out of my busy schedule to go sit in a lame diner!”

Busy schedule? His previous schedule seemed to consist of allowing himself to freeze to death. She followed him into the diner, a small bell signalling their entrance.

“Hello, Mister Connors!” A man called from behind the counter.

“No thanks, Jeff.” “Mister Connors” sat down at one of the stools to shake snowflakes off of the scarf he was wearing.

Well, he was definitely rude. Rita sat at a stool next to him. “I’m Rita Hanson, I-”

“Alright, Rhubarb.”

“That… couldn’t be more wrong.”

“Bold assumption, Melissa.”

“...Okay.” She sighed. “I’m Rita, you?”

He gave her a suspicious look. “Get me some coffee and I might tell you.”

Well, he did probably need something warm. Rita could spare a few dollars. “Hey, can I get some.”

“Here.” Jeff set down a mug of black coffee. “Things like this happen a lot with him.” He whispered to Rita.

She _better_ not be getting manipulated by this guy. “So, you’re-”

Connors picked up the mug and downed the contents in one go, setting it down on the counter with a loud _clack_. “Phil Connors. And before _you_ ask, yes, like the groundhog.”

“Oh.” _Okay_. “So you were outside in the snow because…?”

“I was bored. I like the snow. You telling me you don’t do things you like when you’re bored?”

“No, I do, I’m just not usually doing things that risk hypothermia.”

“What did I say about that?” He knocked the cup back to get the final dregs at the bottom and stood from his seat. “Well this has been _very_ fun but I… I…”

A strange expression crossed over Phil’s face and he lurched forward. Rita caught the mug he almost knocked to the floor in one hand and grabbed his jacket to prevent him from hitting the floor in the other. For a moment, Rita just stood there dumbfounded by her own performance of dexterity but then the gravity of the situation hit her. 

“Are you okay?!” She asked, sitting him back up on the stool. 

“No, I’m great, this just happens sometimes. Waves of, uh, exhaustion, y’know?” He placed a hand to his head. “Wow, haven’t had that happen in quite a few years.”

Rita swatted his hand out of the way and placed her own on his forehead, moving them to his cheeks and then his neck. “Jesus, you’re freezing!”

“I’m not _freezing_ , I’m just neutral.”

“You’re not a normal human temperature, that’s for sure.” Rita started patting down her pockets. “I’ll call some medical help, I should have done this a while ago.”

Phil grabbed her wrist. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m… trying to help you?”

Phil stared at her for a very long time. Rita slowly shook his hand off of her wrist, which seemed to snap him out of it. “Well, thanks for that but I’m fine. My core body temperature is up to snuff, just got some chill on the outside. I’ve just been pulling some late nights. Here.” He stood up before Rita could catch him again and spun around. “All good.”

“Wow, you displayed the alacrity of a five year old.” Rita deadpanned. “Will you _please_ let me call someone?”

“I’m fine, I was only out there for ten minutes tops. Jeff, vouch for me!” He called.

Jeff looked at her sympathetically. “He’s fine. This happens a lot during the winter.”

“See? Jeff gets it. Plus I am totally dressed for the weather-” Phil dramatically flipped his jacket. “-So everything is fine. I’m just one of those naturally cold people.”

She hesitated. Rita had taken a few falls due to exhaustion and Phil definitely had… _that_ look about him but she was just worried. Maybe she should stop fussing over people like this.

“Alright, fine,” She sighed. “Can you please stay in here for a few minutes though?”

More weird staring. “Yea. Okay.”

He sat back down, crossing his arms on the counter and putting his head down like an elementary kid that was in trouble. Rita ordered a sticky bun for herself and a cinnamon roll for Larry, as well as another cup of coffee for Phil. This one he drank much more slowly, sipping it in thirty second intervals.

About thirty five minutes later he got up once more. “Thank you for all this. It really is an odd amount of generosity to be showing a stranger.”

“No problem,” Rita smiled. “You’re seriously okay?”

“Yup. Now if you’ll excuse me I have something I need to go check on.”

He opened the door, briefly enveloped in a cloud of snowflakes. And then he was gone.

“I wouldn’t bother him next time,” Jeff said, putting another mug of coffee in front of her. “He’s spent a lot of time getting people not to bother him. And, God, he’s been in town as long as I can remember.”

“Oh, uh, I didn’t order this,” Rita said.

“I know. It’s on the house. Well, it’s not, I’m paying for it, but you get it. It’s a consolation prize for helping Phil.”

“What, are you one of his friends?”

“No, but he’s difficult. He doesn’t have friends, certainly not me. Just enjoy the coffee.”

Rita took a sip. It was sweet, a lot of sugar and cream. Just like she liked it. She didn't know how Jeff guessed, but she could appreciate it. Sometimes you just needed sweet things in life.

* * *

Snow crunched under Phil’s feet as he walked through the northern outskirts of town. Snow drifted down, falling faster and heavier as he walked along. Rita, huh? Gods, why was he thinking about her so much? Why had he acted so awkward around her? The kindness she had shown was just like any other he’d received from humans, easily condescending and patronizing. Phil _hated_ being patronized, he had received it enough from those on his own level and was not about to take it from those below it. Plus that embarrassing show of weakness with the dizzy spell. There had been a reason that he was laying down and it had been that he was tired and she had to make a fuss out of it.

And yet… something in the way he looked at him reminded him of a certain night, one of the best nights he’d had in this hell town. What was he doing, chasing a feeling, a high that he might never obtain again? A brief moment of comfort, as if that’d distract him from centuries of torment.

Well what the fuck ever. He could get enough moments of comfort to fill up a thousand years if he damn well pleased. Phil was going to show all of them how god damn happy he was.

Flurries swirled him, piling up into large drifts. This blizzard he conjured up really was a pretty good one. Wind whipped at his coat and threatened to pull off the scarf he always had thrown on haphazardly. Around him was howling wind, the sensation of every snowflake reaching the ground, but soon, just three more feet away… Silence. The border of Phil’s entire world for the past two hundred years or so.

He'd stopped visiting a long time ago, when it became clear that no matter what kind of disasters he threw at this thing, it wouldn't break the magical barrier trapping him in. It had been a while though. Maybe the magic was weak enough to shatter with just a touch. He held up a hand, but stopped inches away from the invisible wall.

Maybe he should just hold onto this hope, this fantasy of escapism. If it didn't work, that was another straw on the camel’s back, but if he didn't make an attempt… Well, Phil knew enough about human sciences now to understand the Schrodinger’s effect. What would he even do if he went out there? The other deities would probably just throw him back into another prison, maybe even a worse one.

The falling flakes in the immediate vicinity had frozen in air, vibrating slightly as he calculated what kind of damage either side of this coin toss would have on his psyche. Phil shook his head. This was stupid, it was _much_ better to be anywhere but here. He extended his arm for the last few inches.

Any part of his hand beyond the invisible line burst into snow, ice and droplets of water. They swirled around in air, forming the vague shape of fingers and his palm. Phil couldn't feel his hand anymore, but he certainly got his answer. He pushed forward more, watching as less and less of his arm had definitive form. What would happen, he wondered, if he just stepped across? He'd never tried to put his whole body over the line. Phil suspected his consciousness would just be released into the cosmos. The closest he could get to death.

He stopped. He was almost in up to his shoulder. What had he just said, about proving he was happy? Phil pulled his arm back, exhaling shakily. He was going to show that this “punishment” wasn’t working. Not that it really mattered, in the end. 

All Phil had to do was tough it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW i was not expecting this to get done as fast as it did, but if you were in the discord for the development phase of this you'll probably recognize a small portion that was recycled from a drabble. Anyways, I'm spoiling you guys with two chapters in just as many days. Aiming for three now.
> 
> Catch my writing blog @lilac-lying and my ghd blog @hope-for-phil-connors on tumblr
> 
> Kudos are great, comments are even better!


	3. Avalanche

“-Has declared in groundhogese that he did in fact see his shadow, six more weeks of winter!”

Rita clapped as the crowd cheered. Scott started his wrap up, something cheery and bright about the big hearts of small towns.

“Nice job, Scott!” She said when he finished. “I think that’s good.”

“Thanks, Rita.” He coughed into his fist. “Fuck, I think I might need to head back to the B&B.”

“Nice holding it together during the broadcast,” Larry called. “But also maybe stay five feet or more away from me.”

“Ugh, no problem Larry.” Scott leaned over, hands braced on his knees. “You have Nyquil, right?”

“Yea, I got some yesterday.”

Rita walked away as they started to talk about trading medicine, checking her clipboard. Thankfully Scott got through the segment without falling apart, and they’d be out of town in just a few hours so he could go home and rest. 

“So who’s that piece of work?”

“Ah!” Rita whipped around to see Phil Connors leaning against the news van. “Jesus… Christ, you scared me!”

He smirked. “I do have that effect, people are just startled by my natural effervescence I suppose.”

“Sure they are.”

“So the guy in the suit is…?”

“Scott Johnson, the weather guy? He’s here for the segment I’m producing about the groundhog.” 

Phil grimaced. “The groundhog, huh?” He shook his head. “Well, I wanted to… apologize for my behavior yesterday. I was under a lot of pressure from family stuff and I don’t play well with new people.”

“Oh, well, you’re forgiven, I guess.”

“You want, like, to grab some coffee at the diner? To make up for it, I mean, I can pay for it.”

This was an awfully weird turn of events after how Phil had acted yesterday. But he had said he was tired, and Rita knew how cranky people could get firsthand. “I mean, sure, what’s the harm in it?”

“I’ll see you in five minutes?”

“Sure, Phil. Let me just help Larry pack up some.”

* * *

Rita was a few minutes late due to almost dropping a few pieces of equipment, but thankfully Phil was still sitting at the counter when she got there.

“I’m so sorry!” She gasped. “I didn’t expect that to take so long!”

“Hey, it’s all fine! You reserve the right to stand me up, anyways.” He started digging around in the pockets of his jacket. “Let me get stuff to pay for the coffee.”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to-” Rita burst out laughing. “What is that?”

Phil glanced down at the pink sequined wallet in his hands. “Do you have a problem?”

“No, no, it’s just…” She dissolved into giggles. “I didn’t really take you to be into glitter.”

“It’s a gift from my sister. What I’m hearing right now is that you don’t want free coffee.”

“Alright, I won’t make fun of your wallet anymore, it’s cute.” Rita grinned and nudged him with her elbow.

Phil tried to subtly edge away from her. Tried, but Rita noticed. She decided not to say anything. “Get me something with extra cream and sugar, okay?”

Jeff served up their coffee a few minutes later, sending a smile towards Rita before he went back to work. “So, you’re a Punxsutawney resident, right? Any cool sights you like in town?”

“In Punxsutawney? Don’t make me laugh.” He blinked, something akin to realization dawning on his face. “Wait, where are you from?”

“Pittsburgh.”

Phil was suddenly leaning really close. “What’s it like over there? How big is it? How many people? What kind of food do you have?”

“Whoa, slow down.” Rita held up her hands, inching back to put a little more space back between them. Phil had a look of wonderment, hands gripping his seat so tight that his knuckles turned white. And yet there was an edge of desperation to his voice, to the way he held himself.

“Hey can I have everyone’s attention?” The sheriff walked through the doors and started shouting as Rita opened her mouth to say something

“Listen up for the sheriff!” Another officer yelled.

“Well folks, it looks like the closed down the highway.”

“What? Why?” Rita reached for her phone.

“What’s going on?” One woman called from a booth.

“It’s that blizzard thing.” The second officer replied.

“Blizzard thing?” There wasn’t supposed to be a blizzard in this area. Rita probably needed to call the station about this…

“ _Everything’s_ shut down?”

“What about the one nineteen?”

“Closed.”

“Three ten?”

“Closed! Everything is closed, it’s all around us.”

It suddenly came to her attention that Phil wasn’t reacting to this like the rest of the residents. She turned to him as the officers and the rest of the diner started talking to each other. “Phil, are you okay?”

“Mm? Oh.” He swiveled around, putting on a half-hearted look of surprise. “Oh no, all the roads are blocked. How ever will I get out of the town I haven’t left in forty years.” He took a swig of his coffee. “How was that?”

“Worse than my sixth grade drama production. Forty years? You look like you can’t be older than that.”

“I’m… _not_.” Phil waved a hand. “Shame about the blizzard. That means you can’t go home, right?”

“How do you know that?” 

He snorted. “Who’s the one who just said they’ve been here for at least forty years? I know everyone who lives here. You _just_ told me that you were from Pittsburgh and before that you told me that you were here for a story on the groundhog.”

Oh yea, she did say that. “I’m sorry, I did. I get kind of antsy around people sometimes.” Mostly men, but that felt rude to say right now.

“Hey, it gives us more time to spend together. Maybe closer to drinking hours.” Phil winked at her.

“Easy there, tiger,” Rita laughed. “I’d be happy to hang out, but it’s not going anywhere, okay?

Something dark flashed through his eyes, just for a second. And then it was gone and he was beaming at her. Guess she was just seeing things. “Of course, I mean what kind of person would I be if I was expecting anything?”

He pulled out the bedazzled wallet, took out all of the bills inside of it and placed them in front of Rita. “Here, you can have this.”

“Thanks…?”

“No problem, treat yourself to something.” He walked to the door and pulled it open. “How about the bar at six o’clock?”

“I’ll see you there.” She smiled and raised her coffee as if it were a toast. Phil smiled back.

* * *

As soon as his back was to Rita and the door was closed, Phil took out the wallet he’d stolen earlier. Miriam Griffith, huh? He walked into an alley and floated to the top of the building to get a good vantage point. He’d gotten it just down the street from here, so maybe…

Aha, there she was. He dropped back to the ground in the alleyway and walked into the street. “Hey, uh, Miriam!” Phil jogged to catch up with her.

“Huh?” She turned to him. “Do I know you?”

“Nope, but I found your wallet under a bench?” He held it up. “Your license was inside so I started looking for you.”

“But I thought I had it right…” Miriam stopped to pat down her pockets and blanched after a few moments. “Oh my god, I _did_ drop it! Thank you so much, I have pictures of my mom in there.” Oh, sentimental tokens. Phil might be having some fun tonight after all, if he played his cards right. Well, he’d be having fun either way, this was just a back up if things with Rita didn’t turn out.

“Well it’s no problem at all. Did you, uh, not have any bills in there or did someone…?”

“Oh, geez, someone must have taken them. It seems like all my cards and pictures are still in here, so everything’s fine. Again, thank you so much for returning it.”

“Mhm.” He leaned in a little closer. “You’re not from Punxsutawney, are you?”

“No, a few towns over.”

“Single?”

“Yea. Why?”

“Well, there’s a blizzard around town. I was just thinking maybe later I could help keep your hotel room warm.”

“Ah, I see.” Miriam smirked. “Maybe stop by the Bed and Breakfast later to see what my mood is.”

“What a _coincidence_ , I live just down the road.”

With another cocky smile, Phil walked away. Once he was around the street corner, it melted away. Well, now he had something to do after his little date with Rita, but something still felt off. He wasn’t nervous, he’d done something almost exactly like this before. Maybe several times before.

Phil shoved his hands into his pockets. So Rita was from Pittsburgh. It had existed as a borough when he was still out and about in the world. He wondered how much it had changed since he’d been gone. Maybe he’d be able to get enough out of Rita tonight to get a good mental picture. Another place to dream of besides Punxsutawney. The thought almost made him smile. He had thousands of locations, pictures stored in his mind, but they were hundreds of years out of date. Phil wanted something more _real_. 

There was only so many times he could go back to New York in the 1980’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrow I'm working surprisingly fast. Went from 3 weeks of production for the first chapter and now i'm onto one day for the rest. Still riding this wave of production to see how long it'll last.
> 
> Catch my writing blog @lilac-lying and my ghd blog @hope-for-phil-connors on tumblr
> 
> Kudos are great but comments are even better!


	4. Fata Morgana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna have a schedule update so keep that in mind!

Smiling was a lot easier when Phil was drunk. A lot of people thought he was an angry drunk, but really he got pretty giggly. Honestly, Phil getting drunk was a win-win situation for everyone. Plus, Billy was working the bar tonight and he was kinda cute.

One of the upsides of Phil’s divine physiology was being able to drink as much alcohol as he wanted without dying, but it also meant that he had to drink a lot _more_ before he started to feel any effects. Long story short, he’d already had a couple of glasses before Rita arrived. It was fine, he’d slipped enough bills out of people’s pockets to at least pay for a night of drinks.

“Rita!” He crowed when she walked through the door. “Come on over, sweetheart!”

“You seem cheerful, but maybe don’t call me sweetheart,” Rita sat across from him. “Having a good night?”

“Ah, totally! I’ve already had a drink or two. Hey, what’s your favorite, I’ll get it for you.”

“Sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist.” She frowned and reached for his sleeve. “Is that frost?”

“Hm?” He glanced down. Ah shit, there was in fact frost crawling up his fingers. He thought he’d gotten rid of that quirk fifty years ago. Phil quickly rubbed his hands together to get rid of it. “Nah, I just fell down in the snow a little bit ago, it’s all good. Hey! Billy! Can I get a, uh…”

“Sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist,” Rita called over for him.

“Yea, that!”

She laughed. “I kind of like this Phil. He’s sweet.”

“Hey, I can show you _exactly_ how sweet I can be.”

Rita nodded, pursing her lips. “There it is.” She accepted the vermouth as Phil passed it to her from Billy. “Don’t get all gross about this, okay?”

“No, no! Totally, I don’t want you to get grossed out!” He was doing it, getting repetitive like he did when he was drunk. Maybe he should lay off the alcohol for an hour or so. “Ugh, I’m sorry. I just get kind of nervous around pretty girls, I guess.”

“Phil, what did I just-”

“I don’t mean anything by it besides that you’re pretty. Compliments, right?”

Rita seemed kind of suspicious of that for a moment, but then she shrugged it off. “Well, then you’re not too bad yourself.”

“If I had a heart, it would have beat a little faster at that.” Phil swooned overdramatically.

“I- What?”

Oops. “ _So_ , you’re not doing to the groundhog dinner, huh?”

“Oh, well, I’m terrible at dancing.” Good old avoiding subjects, always worked when Phil needed it. “Plus I’ve got to be ready leave at the drop of a hat for Scott. Oh yea, by the way, if that happens-”

“I get it. Just hope the guy doesn’t need to be hospitalized or something.” Was the flu bad enough for something like that to happen? Phil couldn’t keep all these diseases straight. He was the god of weather, not medicine.

“It’s probably fine. He already seems to be getting over it. Conked out as soon as he got to his room, but that’s usually a good sign. At least he’s not miserable enough to not be able to fall asleep.”

“I know how that is.” No he did not, not at all. “Hey how about a toast?”

“Sure. To what?”

“How about to us?”

“Mmm, how about to the groundhog?”

_That stupid fucking groundhog_. Phil had half a mind to go into the other room and smite the little bastard with lightning. But he smiled anyways. “To the groundhog.” 

He downed the rest of his glass. So much for not drinking anymore for the rest of the hour. Still, he felt a little better. “So you’re gonna be stuck in town for a while, right? That blizzard doesn’t seem to be letting up.”

“Yea, probably.”

“Alright, I’ve got a deal for you.”

“...I do not like the sound of that at all.”

“I’ll take you on a full VIP tour of Punxsutawney if _you_ tell me about Pittsburgh.”

Rita stared at him for a long time and then burst into laughter. “Oh my god, you’re such a drama queen! ‘I’ve got a deal for you’, can you not talk like a normal person?”

A less inebriated Phil would be very annoyed with her teasing, but drunk Phil was noticing how Rita kind of snorted when she laughed. That was something that sucked about drunk Phil, he got sentimental sometimes. High Phil was _much_ better about these kinds of things.

“I think that you are holding me to an unreasonably high standard, considering the gallon of alcohol in my body right now.”

“Of course, I’m so sorry,” He saw Rita smiling behind her glass. “I agree to your conditions, Philip.”

“My name isn’t Philip.”

“Oh. Philippe?”

“No, not that either.”

“Philbert.”

“ _God_ , no. What is wrong with you?”

Rita threw her hands up. “Well then what is your full name? Is it just Phil? Oh shit, did I do all of that for no reason?”

“No, I’ve got a longer first name.”

“Come on. You’ve got to tell me.” She leaned back in her chair and spread her arms out. “Phil. It’s me.”

Phil almost laughed before he realized fully what he was doing. He’d never given his name out to anyone before, and he wasn’t about to start now. Still, he could use this. He sent over one of his trademark smirks. “You’re going to have to get a little... closer to get that information.”

“I think I’ll get it out of you on that tour instead.”

He’d allow her to believe that.

* * *

Phil sat on a bench outside of the Bed and Breakfast, watching the wind whip snow into tiny tornados in between his feet. He’d actually already woken up _in_ the B&B, thanks to Miriam’s good mood last night, but waiting outside the building was less creepy. And Phil was anything if not a considerate man.

“Holy shit, you look dead inside,” Rita said, crossing into his field of vision. There she was. “Hangover?”

“No, I don’t get those. What do you mean ‘dead inside’?”

“You just look like super tired with an undertone of vague anger.”

See, this is what he meant when he said smiling was easier when he was drunk. With alcohol, it just _happened_ , but the rest of the time Phil had to put effort into looking happy. But he’d been doing it for a hundred years and he wasn’t about to start now.

“Just didn’t get that much sleep last night. Too busy trying to think of all the _amazing_ places to show you in Punxsutawney.” He gathered together all of the shredded scraps of artificially manufactured happiness from last night to get a passably cheerful expression.

“Is that a hint of sarcasm I detect?”

Phil chuckled. “Yea, well, I love this town-” Bullshit. “-But there aren’t too many tourist attractions here.”

“Okay, hotshot, what’s your first spot on my VIP tour?”

“...Barclay Square looks pretty okay this time of year. It’s further down the road, right next to the police station. And the library, I guess.”

“How much of your knowledge of the town is related to its proximity to the police station?” Rita asked.

“An awful lot of it, now that you mention it.”

Rita grabbed the collar of his jacket and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, you gotta show me this Barclay Square.”

They started their trek down the sidewalk, Phil rattling off random facts. “The place is made on land donated by Reverend David Barclay. It’s got some cannons that I’m pretty sure are a memorial of some kind? I dunno, Barclay used to hold services in his house before the church went up.”

“Wow, real David Barclay buff, huh?”

“Oh, I hated the guy.” Fuck, hopefully Rita would breeze past that slip in use of tense.

“Geez, what do you have against him?”

“Just not my kind of guy. You probably wouldn’t have liked him either though, he _was_ a man in the eighteen hundreds and you’re not that. Wasn’t a great time for a lot of people.”

“That’s one thing we agree on.”

“Maybe we could agree on-” As soon as he crossed into the square a snowball was thrown directly into his face. “ _Fuck_!”

“I think we just walked into a snowball fight!” Rita sounded way too happy about that. She pulled him behind a tree, already scooping powder off the ground to retaliate.

Whatever, these kids were picking a fight with the wrong god. He concentrated for a split second and smiled at the distant shriek of a boy getting five pounds of loose powder on top of them.

“Whoa, somebody just got wiped out!” Rita grinned.

“Wow, I wonder who got ‘em.” Phil sounded a tad monotone, but that was fine. He grabbed a clump of snow and chucked it at someone else. It hit its mark, but then what else was ever going to happen? This was Phil’s territory. 

“Watch out!” Rita charged into him, knocking both of them to the ground as a series of snowballs went sailing over them.

Phil landed on his back in the snow, breath knocked clean out of his chest. Rita narrowly avoided collapsing on top of him with her hands planted in the powder on either side of his head.

“That didn’t work as well as I planned,” She laughed breathlessly.

Phil didn’t say anything. He’d completely forgotten how to speak English, and he was pretty sure if he tried it would all would come out as some dead primordial language. The snow started falling harder around them, small specs turning into large, fluffy flakes. He had a weird thought, that hundreds of years ago he might have been able to describe how he was feeling but now…

“Uh, Phil?” Rita chuckled nervously. “Things okay up there?”

He said the first thing in English he could pull out of his head. “This is a pretty interesting position we’re in, wouldn’t you say?”

She immediately ground a handful of snow into his face. “Ugh, way to ruin it.”

“I’m sorry, I short circuited.” Phil wiped the snow off his face and sat up. This time, a snowball was thrown directly into the back of his head by some unseen teenager. It also seemed that Rita had moved off of him. “Ahh, _fuck_ , I love kids.”

“Yea, me too.”

“Really? I was…” He cleared his throat. “Do you have any?”

“Kids? No, no, no. I’m single. I mean, not that there aren’t single parents that are great. There’s lot of them, I just… I don’t think I’d do all that great at it. By myself, I mean. I’m guessing you don’t have any kids either?”

“Oh, no, not that I know of. I probably, like, should _never_ have them anyways.”

Rita snorted and tossed a handful of snow Phil’s way. “Aw, you don’t mean that.”

“No, I’d fuck them right up. My family fucked me up, I’d just carry that down the line.” He waved a hand around. “I mean, it’s fine anyways, the way my family is they get super freaked out when someone has kids. Actually, they’d probably be doubly upset if it was me, I’m pretty showy.”

“That sounds super messed up.” Rita frowned. 

“It’s fine, we don’t talk much anymore. Don’t blame ‘em anyway.”

She reached over and awkwardly pat his back. “Well, you can talk to me about it until I leave town. Not too much though, okay? I’ve got baggage of my own.”

“... Yea. Thanks.” Phil was going to stab himself in the stomach if he had to keep with this subject any longer. He twisted around to completely face her. “Hey, tell me about Pittsburgh.”

“What is it with you and Pittsburgh?”

“We’ve been through this. I’ve never been outside of Punxsutawney, Rita.”

“I know you say that but there’s no way you haven’t at least-”

“ _Please_.”

Phil hated the way that Rita looked at him like he was hurt, but he needed this. “I mean I’m not a walking tour guide like you but..” She sighed and dropped back into the snow. “It’s nice. A lot different from Punxsutawney, considering the amount of people. God, I don’t know, Phil, I’m forgetting everything I ever knew about Pittsburgh now that I’m on the spot like this.”

He wished he could do that.

“Okay, so.” Rita took a deep breath. “So, I used to share an apartment with this girl named Nora. Real sweet, worked at a bookstore. Anyways, on the day I got hired at the station she took me up to the roof of our apartment building to watch the sunset. I’d seen it before but for some reason that day it just seemed extra beautiful.” She stared into the distance like she was experiencing it right now, a faint smile on her face. “Oh, also I’m pretty sure it’s got the most bridges of any cities in the world.”

“What?”

“Don’t quote me on that, it might be total bullshit. All I know is that the place has a lot of bridges.”

Is that what good people did? It all seemed genuine, beyond just a deal for getting a tour of a small down. Good people probably didn’t trap other people using supernatural powers. Oh gods, was Phil starting to question his morals? No, he wasn’t doing anything _bad_ , it was just a little bit shady. He wasn’t going to keep the blizzard up forever. It’d all be good in the end.

“Want to do this again tomorrow?” Phil asked. “I mean, not Barclay, you can really only do things once in this town before it’s boring.”

“Sure. I’ll Google up some Pittsburgh facts for you.”

Phil had to go find someone to distract him for the rest of the day, if only to prove to himself that he wasn’t changing.

And then another snowball beaned him square in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here's another chapter. Things are going pretty good and at this rate this may be the longest writing project I've finished. It's very tempting to just post chapters as soon as I finish them but I'll probably be more consistent if i keep up the schedule.
> 
> Catch my writing blog @lilac-lying and my ghd blog @hope-for-phil-connors on tumblr
> 
> Kudos are awesome but comments are even better.


	5. Fog

“Welcome to the Punxsutawney library.” Phil said with a flamboyant gesture. “You seem like a woman who likes her books, but I brought you here for the groundhog.” He pointed towards a corner of the library. “Enclosure’s over there.”

“Oh my god.” Rita rushed over to a glass pane in the wall. “Hey, how do they speak “groundhogese” anyways?”

“It’s the cane.”

“No!”

“Yea, it’s a magical acacia wood cane that allows the Inner Circle to speak groundhogese.” Phil tapped lightly on the glass. “The little guy once got a class action lawsuits of sorts calling for the death penalty.”

“He fucking _what_?”

“Mhm.” Phil had an oddly smug expression. “Some prosecutor in Ohio cited--I believe the quote is-- ”misrepresentation of early spring, an Unclassified Felony, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Ohio”. They were just so upset about Phil’s inaccuracy.”

Rita laughed. “That’s insane, he’s just a groundhog.”

“An immortal groundhog. Y’know Punxsutawney discovered the secret to immortality and they’re wasting it on a groundhog.”

“Wait, really?”

“ _No_ , not really, it’s bullshit. Rita, I had faith in you.”

She rolled her eyes and punched his arm. “I can’t believe that faith was so easily shaken.” 

Phil was actually getting easier and easier to bear with each day. He hadn’t even made any vaguely sexual comments today, which was a welcome relief. It turned out when he wasn’t trying to get into her pants he was rather sweet.

“Bullshit!”

“Hm?” Rita looked away from the groundhog enclosure. Phil had moved onto one of the shelves, flipping through a book. “What do you got there?”

“Nothing, just a book I haven’t read yet with absolute bullshit about… family stuff.” He slipped the book back onto the shelf. “Come on, maybe the cops next door will let me show you the holding cell they always toss me in.”

“Alright, I’ll catch up with you, let me just look at the groundhog a bit more.”

Phil left with a shrug. Rita waited until she was out of sight, squinting into the space beyond the glass. When she went over to check what book Phil had put back, she just told herself it was curiosity. It wasn’t a _crime_ , what she was doing.

All she found was a world mythology book.

* * *

“Hey, Billy, can I get a sweet vermouth on…” He looked over to Rita with the desperation of a man who had clearly just forgot what was told to him.

“The rocks with a twist,” Rita finished for him. They hadn’t gone on any tour spots today, but Phil had offered to buy her a drink and she figured she could go for one. The blizzard _still_ showed no signs of letting up, and the weather in the town was even starting to get worse. 

“Okay, okay, okay.” Rita tapped her fingers against the tabletop. “We’ve been acquaintances long enough to play the question game, I want all the stupid niche facts about you.”

“Question game?”

“Yea! I ask a question, you have to answer it, you ask a question, I have to answer it, so on and so on! You start!”

Phil stared holes into the table. “Ah, fuck. Okay. What’s your favorite color?”

“The kind of pink that’s leaning just a bit into maroon territory.” She accepted the vermouth as Billy passed it to her. “Tit for tat, what’s _your_ favorite color?”

“Snow.”

“Snow isn’t a color, Phil.”

“Yes it is.” He looked almost insulted by this remark. “The sparkly white that’s iridescent rainbow when the light hits it at the perfect angles.”

Rita blinked a few times, taking a quick drink. “Okay, wow, didn’t expect you to get all poetic there.”

“Yea, well, I’m very passionate about snow, so fuck you. What’s the coolest place you’ve ever been to?”

“Wow, that’s a lofty question.” She contemplated the question. “If I had to choose something--which I really don’t want to--one time I went to Chicago with my family and we stopped by the Art Institute and that was pretty awesome. Hey!” Rita lifted her glass towards him. “You should go sometime! See some stuff outside of Punxsutawney.”

Phil smiled, but it looked almost sad this time. “Yea. That’d be cool. Now, c’mon, hit me with another question, I’m enjoying this game more than I thought I would. Although maybe it’s the alcohol…”

“Favorite movie?”

“Mm! Ghostbusters two.”

Rita almost snorted alcohol out her nose. “Really? I mean like plenty of people have Ghostbusters as a favorite but the second one?”

“...I’ve never seen the first Ghostbusters.”

“What?! How did you see the second one without the first?”

“Well there was this girl I went on a date with and she made a reference to it and I didn’t get it so then she dragged me back to her apartment to watch it and-” Rita could hear his breath hitch from across the table. “I’m getting into too much detail. What kind of candy do you like?”

“I dunno. Anything with chocolate, I guess. Oh, but not things with almonds, I’m not really a big fan.” What to ask, what to ask… Oh. Of _course_. “What’s your full first name?”

“Oh, god, I can't-”

“Ah, ah! Rules of the game, you have to tell me!”

Phil lifted up his glass to drink and mumbled unintelligibly into it.

“I have to be able to hear it!”

“Philemon…”

Rita raised her eyebrows. “ _Philemon_? Where were your parents from, ancient Greece?”

He stood up from his chair. “I think I should go. Thanks for coming.”

“Ah, no, wait, I’m sorry. It’s a fine name, just kind of odd.”

“It’s not that, I just realized something very important about my being here.” He shook his head. “Sorry, that sounded weird, I have to do something.”

“What, are you not going to ask if I want to go on another tour tomorrow?” She asked as Phil started pulling on his coat.

“No, no I’m not. Have a good night.” Without another word, he was gone and the door was slamming shut behind him.

* * *

Rita tugged at her hat to try and secure it. The weather was getting more and more severe, and she’d been holed up in her room for a day or so. But now she needed to pick up some groceries from the store. As she walked, she was trying to decide if it was a smarter move to get groceries for just a day or two in hopes that the storm on the outskirts would clear up soon, or plan for the worst and get some for about a week so she wouldn’t need to keep heading back. Well, groceries was a strong word. They didn’t exactly have access to a great kitchen.

What she wasn’t expecting to see was Phil sitting in the snow.

“Jesus Christ, I’m having deja vu.”

He looked up at her blearily. “What do you mean?”

“How we first met? I mean, you’re not laying face down so that’s an improvement. Y’know, I kind of expected you to be doing something else with your day if you weren’t hanging out with me.”

“I, uh…” Phil cleared his throat. “I don’t-I don’t think you should be around me anymore.”

She suddenly realized how pained he looked. “Whoa, are you okay?”

“I’m not okay, I’m not good, I-” He stopped, took a deep breath. “I’m going through something messy right now, and I’m basically a stranger, so you should just…” Phil made small shooing motions with his hands. “Go away.”

“I mean after everything you’ve done we’re at least-”

“ _Rita_!” Phil shouted. “I’m trying to do something nice for you! Just trust me on this, okay?”

“Okay, okay!” Rita held up her hands in some sort of placating gesture. “Come to my room if you need anything, okay? And _don’t_ let yourself get hypothermia.”

Something felt very wrong about walking away from Phil, like he was teetering on the edge of something. Rita wasn’t sure that if she reached out she would pull him back over or just end up pushing him off.

* * *

Rita looked up from her poetry book as the sound of weak knocks came across the room. She swung her legs out of the bed. “Coming, give me a second!” It was probably Larry, or maybe Scott asking for flu medication.

However, when she opened the door, she was met with the face of Phil Connors. He looked like _shit_ , maybe even worse than Scott. The snow covering his jacket and hair did not make him look any less haggard. “Hey, your room has a bathroom, right?” He sounded like shit too, like he’d been gargling sand and other coarse, dry substances.

“Yea? It’s a blizzard out there, why did you come over?”

“Good.” He pushed past her, already shucking off his jacket and pants. 

“Wh- Phil, what are you doing?!”

“You said to come to your room if I needed anything.” He disappeared into the bathroom and the door shut behind him with a _bang_. Rita hesitated when reaching for the door knob. Did she really want to see this? On the other side, she heard the bath faucet start running. No, probably not. 

Rita grabbed her book of poetry and sat on the floor, back braced against the bathroom door. She had no idea what Phil was doing, but it wasn’t like he could do anything particularly bad in there. It was just her toothbrush and toothpaste, and it wasn’t like those things were expensive commodities.

Eventually the faucet stopped running. Maybe Rita should check on him. He didn’t seem to be… in the best mental state when he walked in. She got up and knocked on the door. “Hey, Phil? Do you mind if I come in?”

“Okay,” came a sound so quiet Rita had to strain to hear it. She slowly opened the door, keeping her eyes on a little spot on the wall. “Oh, come on Rita, you can look at me.”

She dragged her eyes from the wall to the bathtub. Oh. Phil was laying in the tub with his underwear and shirt still on. “Do you… do this often?”

“Don’t be like that, this is partially for you. And…” He slouched down a bit further. “I like the weight of wet clothes. Sue me.”

“No, it’s fine, I guess.” Rita sat down next to the tub. “Are you okay?”

“What doesn’t seem okay about me?”

“Okay people don’t normally go to other people’s hotel rooms and use their bathrooms for shit like whatever this is.”

“Well mine is, um, under maintenance. And people freaked out last time I jumped in the lake.”

“You don’t have someone else in town who’d let you use theirs? You said you’ve been in town your whole life.”

Phil blinked. “Give me a moment.” He dunked his head under the water for a few seconds. “I’m not particularly close to anyone in town. I’d probably have to fuck someone before they let me use their bathroom.”

Rita sighed. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“Doing what?” He looked genuinely confused, which just made the whole thing worse.

“You can’t keep doing this- this incessant trying to prove that you can’t connect to people. It’s like you’re trying to show yourself the only thing people want you for is sex and that you’re not emotionally capable of caring. When's the last time you just let yourself exist with someone?” From the pained expression he had, Rita could only hope she managed to break down some kind of wall. She pat his shoulder and stood. “Take all the time you need, Phil. I’m going to go read.”

She left the bathroom.

* * *

It was late, reaching onto the stretch of time just beyond midnight, but Rita’s phone was getting the best reception since before the blizzard started. There was no telling how long this would last, so she should probably plan on just being able to make one call. Should she call the station, just to try and get a few more things cleared with them? After some more deliberating in her head, she finally dialed a number. Honestly, she might not even be awake at this time of night…

The dial tone stopped ringing. “Rita…?”

“Hi mom,” Rita smiled. “You sound pretty tired.”

“Well, it’s the middle of the night. Are you okay?”

Rita got off of the bed to start pacing around the room. “Yea, I’m fine. I’m just stuck in a town because of a blizzard and I wanted to call you before I lost reception again.”

“Ah, I see.” Static buzzed for just a few moments. “When do you think you’ll be able to get out?”

“I don’t know, the weather doesn’t seem to be letting up. Actually, it’s starting to get worse.”

“You promise you’re okay, sweetie?”

She nodded, even though she knew her mother couldn’t see her. “Of course. I’m won’t let anything bad happen before I get to see you again.” Rita collapsed back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. “I made friends with some of the locals. One of them has been giving me a tour around town.”

“Really? What’s their name?”

“Phil Connors.” Rita missed this. She used to call her mother a lot, but nowadays…. Not so much. “He’s a little eccentric, but he can be sweet.” 

“Now I know you’ve only known him for a few days, but is there any chance…”

“ _Mom_ , no. He’s not my type!” Rita kind of was into the guys who didn’t make the occasional sexual advance.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry. I’m just getting kind of worried for you.” She could hear her mom sigh over the line. “Well, a cute little cafe opened up just down the street. When you visit we should go together.”

“That sounds really nice.” 

It was dumb, but sitting there in the room of the bed and breakfast, talking to her mother with nothing but the ambient light of her phone screen, it kind of felt like she’d never get out of Punxsutawney.

* * *

The strong winds and heavy snow had grown into a full on blizzard. Rita had to basically fight her way up the street just to get to the diner for breakfast. Turns out she’d forgotten to get any breakfast foods on her trip to the store, which would normally be okay on days she didn’t feel as though the mere act of putting a foot out the door would give her frostbite.

“Welcome back, Ms. Hanson!” Jeff called from the counter. Doris looked up from pouring Debbie and Freddie a cup of coffee to wave to her. 

“Hey…” She started off energetic, but it trailed away when she saw the one and only Phil Connors standing in the middle of the diner, swaying just slightly where he stood with glazed over eyes. Rita edged over to Jeff. “Is he okay…?”

Jeff bit his lip. “He’s like that all morning. Tried to stumble through an order for something but it was incomprehensible and just started standing there.” 

“Alright.” Rita crossed over and took Phil by the arm. “Let’s sit down for a second, okay?” He nodded wordlessly. “What’s going through your head, buddy?” Buddy? Did she really say that?

“A little theory I have,” Phil said dreamily. That didn’t sound great.

“About…?”

Phil seemed to come halfway out of whatever trance he was in. But only halfway. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Well, I haven’t decided that yet.”

He nodded. “Alright.” Phil leaned in close. “I am a god.”

Oh. So he was crazy. “Nice try, but just because you have the ego of one-”

“Nope, full on god. Like, with a little “g” but you get the idea.” He drew back away, gesturing wildly with his arm. “God of the weather, at your service.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. How do you know you’re a god?”

“Well first off the being able to control the weather thing is a pretty good tip off. The fact that I’ve been around since, oh, the beginning of time is another pretty good one. Plus-” He did a weird kind of jazz hands motion. “I can’t die.”

“...You don’t say.”

“Mhm. Stab me, shoot me, choke me or hang me, none of it works. Believe me, I’ve tried a few of them over the years. Besides, the amount of alcohol I’ve drunk should have killed me a _very_ long time ago. And do you want to know the worst part of all of this, Rita?”

“I think that-”

“There’s other gods too! And those bastards stuck me in this town. I literally cannot leave.”

Rita considered putting a hand on his shoulder to steady him but ultimately decided against it. “All of us are stuck in town, Phil. There’s a blizzard.”

He just laughed hysterically. “You’re not listening to me! I’ve been stuck here for hundreds of years and there’s a magical fucking barrier that prevents me from leaving!”

“Phil!” Rita shouted. She cleared her throat and spoke again in a lower voice. “This is _crazy_ , you know that, right? I knew there was something going on with you but this-” She dragged her hands down her face. “-I don’t even know what to say to this.”

Phil chuckled, but it was less hysteric this time, more completely and utterly broken. “Hey, if my theory’s right you don’t have to worry about me much longer.”

“Theory?”

The door to the diner blasted open, gales of ice cold wind released into the room. Jeff yelped, almost dropping a plate of sticky buns only to have it thankfully be caught by Doris. Phil dropped to his feet, arms held out in a “what are you gonna do” gesture as he backed towards the door. 

“Have a good life, Rita.”

“Wait, Phil, you can’t go out there, it’s dangerous, _Phil_ -!” The door slammed shut behind him.

Rita leapt to her feet. Fuck, she couldn’t just leave Phil out there. He had a clear and noted penchant of just finding someplace to lie down and let the elements take him. But her coat wasn’t thick enough for this kind of weather…

“Does anyone have a coat I can borrow?” Rita yelled.

“I have the coat I wore to work,” Doris piped up.

“Is it okay if I take it for a while? I promise I’ll bring it back, he just might…” She didn’t allow herself to finish that thought. Negative thinking didn’t get anyone anywhere.”

“Of course, dear, let me just go get it.” Doris hurried into a back room and returned with a large black coat. “There’s some gloves in the pockets, if you need them.”

“Thank you so much!” Rita quickly pulled on the coat. It clearly was not her size, but that was not her priority right now. She steeled herself, working up a small pep talk for herself about how she just needed to find him and bring him somewhere indoors, anywhere and it’d be done. Then she stepped outside into the howling winds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That thing about the Ohio Lawyer and Punxsy Phil is real btw. Don't worry, not groundhogs were injured in the process of that court cast. Anyways, I'm posting this real quick before I run off for the rest of the day. I tried to draw some parallel with this chapter and the first one, and I at least did that in the format style so. That's cool.
> 
> Kudos are awesome and comments are even better.
> 
> Catch my writing blog @lilac-lying and my ghd blod @hope-for-phil-connors on tumblr.


	6. Snow Squall

Wind tore at Rita's coats, pushed her backwards, howled and screamed at her to give up and just go back inside. _Give up_. But she didn't. She couldn't stop, she had to keep trekking forward.

Tracking Phil was a difficult ordeal. Rita couldn't allow herself to take a break lest the footprints in the snow be covered up by the flurries raining down, and he appeared to be much quicker about moving through the harsh elements than she did. Every now and then she'd glimpse his figure in the distance, long coat flapping in the wind because he wouldn't even _button the damn thing up_. Then he'd disappear moments later, swallowed by the snowfall.

Rita almost wanted to cry. She shouldn't be doing this, she should be calling someone. The police, maybe. Anyone that would be more suited for this endeavor. But something was telling her that she couldn't waste time, had to get to him as fast as she could. Maybe that was the wind too.

“Phil!” Rita screamed into the blank, white void. “Just come back and everything will be okay!”

It was getting harder to see anything, let alone move forward. In the past two minutes alone her field of vision had been reduced from twenty feet to maybe seven. 

If it kept up like this, Rita might have to go inside just to save herself.

“Phil!” Her voice was close to cracking with tears. This was too much. “ _Philemon_!”

The wind whipped up behind her, knocking Rita to the ground with a shriek. _STOP TRYING_.

Rita dragged herself to her arms and knees and mustered all her willpower to get back up. She was not a quitter, goddammit. “I'm not going to let a little breeze stop me! You still owe me at least another stop on your fucking tour!”

She kept yelling as she struggled forward in hopes Phil would hear it. “I still have to tell you more about Pittsburgh! I know that I'm shit at describing it but you've just gotta bear with me! Hell, if you come back I'll _take_ you to Pittsburgh when this lets up!”

Nothing except the creaking of the trees around her as they strained to stay steadfast against the wind. Had she really gone this far? What was Phil even doing out here? Running out of the blizzard wasn't going to work, surely he knew that.

Something blew through the air and Rita jumped to catch it. She felt her stomach sink. It was Phil's dumb scarf he always had. That couldn't be any kind of good.

“Phil, goddammit!” She tried again, throwing the scarf around her neck as she started running as fast as the snow would allow.

It was getting difficult to breathe. Rita felt like the air was freezing inside her lungs, slowly shutting down her systems as she staggered forward. It was the strangest thing, almost like the temperature was dropping whole degrees the further in this direction she went. Like something nearby was just emanating bitter cold. She was almost pushed to the ground again, barely managing to stumble into a tree for support. Rita would have actually started crying if she wasn’t pretty sure her eyes would freeze. She started hopping between trees, wrapping an arm around her to stay against the gales.

The world slowed down all around her. She could see Phil, just… Standing there. Standing in the blizzard, arms outstretched, eyes closed. Rita had to realize this was the most peaceful he'd looked the whole time she'd known him. The whole scene looked like it was right out of a painting. 

And then Phil started tipping backward and she could feel her heart trying to leap out of its confines. Phil was _dissolving_ into snow, starting from his head and moving down the more he keeled over. 

She was running but it didn't seem fast enough. She wasn't going to make it in time. This might be the day where Rita Hanson watched a man die in front of her, unless her legs moved just a little bit faster.

Rita reached forward. Oxygen had stopped fully reaching her lungs a while ago, at least in this warped perception of time, and her chest ached. She stretched out a hand, straining, reaching, attempting to try and get just enough of a hold to pull. Their fingertips brushed and it felt like a bolt of lightning was coursing up Rita’s arm. Not any flowery symbolic connection bullshit, genuine pain.

She grit her teeth against the white hot agony and wrapped her fingers around his wrist right before it disappeared into snow and ice and _pulled_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit of a short one this time around, but you know how it is sometimes. Sorry for the OTHER kind of big cliffhanger but also i'm not actually too sorry. Gotta have your climaxes. 
> 
> Kudos are great but comments are even better.
> 
> Catch my writing blog @lilac-lying and my ghd blog @hope-for-phil-connors on tumblr


	7. Anabatic Wind

Rita pulled so hard she went tumbling backwards as Phil came crashing into her chest. The arm she had grabbed Phil with had already gone numb with pain, so she used the other one to hold onto him as she stared forward and tried to process what she’d just seen. Some little helpful voice in the back of Rita's head registered that there was an actual _weight_ on her chest, so Phil had returned from his state of hail and swirling powder. 

“Let me go,” Phil said weakly. He made feeble attempts to break out of Rita’s grasp. “Just let me-”

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”

“I…”

“You were turning into snow! You _shocked_ me!”

“I _told_ you that I was trapped here! What, you think a brick wall is going to keep a god contained?” He sounded kind of pathetic, like a little kid that had finally convinced an adult that someone had hit them.

“Oh god, or, gods,” Rita was having a bit of crisis about her whole world view. “You weren’t making that stuff up in the diner.”

“Of course I wasn’t, wh-” Phil hissed as his body suddenly started spasming. 

Rita instinctively dropped him. Oh, shit, what did she do? “Are you okay?!”

“I’ve n-n-n-never gone that much beyond the barrier and I th-think it might be fucking with me,” He grit out between his teeth. Phil curled up into a ball and covered his face. “I’m fine-”

“Stop fucking saying that!” Rita yelled. “You’re obviously not! Neither of us are okay right now, Phil! What are you even trying to _accomplish_ with this?!”

“I d-d-don’t know- God fucking dammit I hate this!”

Rita bit down on the side of her cheek. “What were you even trying to do?”

“I was trying to k-kill myself.”

Her stomach flipped over. “Trying?”

“What did you think my theory was about?”

The theory he was talking about in the diner? This was what it was for? “We need to get back inside. Or at least I do, since I seem to be the only one out of the two of us that can get frostbite. And you're coming with me because I no longer trust you to be alone.”

“Why?”

“You just admitted to attempting suicide by magic barrier!”

He said nothing in response, still twitching on the ground. She replied for him in her head. _Wow, you're so right, Rita. I was being stupid and now that I know that you only want to make sure I'm okay I'll do whatever you say._ Gee, thanks Phil!

Rita used her good arm to haul Phil up so one of his arms was draped around her shoulders. He was absolute dead weight. “Can you stand up at least a little?”

“I can't move anything,” He seethed. “Believe me, this is as humiliating for me as it is difficult for you.”

“So what did you do to my arm?”

“Huh?”

“You shocked me when I grabbed you.”

“Oh. I didn’t do that on purpose. Just a lot of pent up energy, I guess.”

She rolled her eyes. Well, she couldn’t exactly refute anything he said. Rita wasn’t the one that was a literal divine being. It suddenly hit her again that oh holy shit, she was currently carrying a celestial deity in her arms. 

Rita nearly tripped as a gust of wind knocked her into a tree. “Can you at least relax the weather a bit? This isn't exactly easy traveling.”

“I would but everything feels… Far away and dull and I don't think that I can-” His eyes widened. “Shit, put me down, put me down!”

Rita dropped him, favoring urgency over care. Phil landed on his hands and knees and made a gut wrenching retching noise. A hard spasm in his arm knocked him right back to the ground.

“Shit, I'm sorry?” It came out a lot like a question, but at this point Rita wasn't sure how or what anything she did was going to affect this weird delicate scale.

“G-give me a sec-second.”

She bit her lip. “We're not going to get to town anytime soon if you keep glitching like an old iPhone.”

“ _I don't know what that means_!”

“It means that we're going to have to find a better way of doing this.” Rita paused. “You don't know what an iPhone is?”

“I know what a phone is, Rita! It's the glitching thing or whatever I don't get! And forgive me for freaking out, but I'm completely disconnected from my powers and I’m trying really fucking hard not to cry right now!”

Right. Rita couldn’t really imagine what that felt like. She knelt down and gently helped Phil sit up. “Just keep with me for thirty minutes and you can just rest, okay?”

He just closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, another short one, but i haven't posted in so long I figured one thing is better than nothing. I'll try to get back on schedule, but I'm also straying a little bit from the planned pacing, so...
> 
> Kudos are great, comments are even better!
> 
> Catch my writing blog @lilac-lying and my ghd blog @hope-for-phil-connors.


	8. Waterspout

Rita had insisted that Phil go to her room, and it honestly didn’t make him feel any better. He still had a dark and hollow feeling in his gut that he had finally recognized as self loathing lovingly combined with guilt. 

He came crashing into the B&B room, collapsing at the foot of the bed. Phil took deep breaths in attempt to soothe the convulsions still wracking his body. He was on the verge of a breakdown not unlike his first time in Punxsutawney, constantly teetering back and forth on the thin line. There was _nothing_ , like he was injected with something that made his whole body go numb.

“Phil?” Rita sounded faraway, underwater. “Are you okay?”

He blinked up at her. His eyesight seemed fogged over. Wait, maybe he was the one doing that. “Is there fog in here?’

“No?”

“Good, good…” Phil let his head fall back to rest on the bed. “I think I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying.”

“It’s okay, I’m fine with it.” He hummed, holding up his arm and flexing his fingers. “I can't feel anything.” Hysterical laughter bubbled up, the simple breath exercise evolving into hyperventilation. “I'm falling apart.”

“Hey, Phil? You need to calm down.”

“I bet this is what those bastards were planning the whole time.”

“Okay, I don't know anything about god stuff but I think that all this freaking out is just making it worse. And I definitely don't think that whoever you're talking about would plan for you to… Die.”

He didn't want to ruin Rita's positive outlook. They definitely would, his family wasn't exactly the coziest around. It also didn't help that at the moment he was hoping he was just going to fade away. Rita really did just have to run along and prolong the whole thing, huh?

“Oh, geez, please don't cry,” Rita's hands hovered over his shoulders. “I don't know how to deal with this.”

“I'm not crying.”

“Okay, sure, let's go with that. Better for both of us.”

She finally drew back her hands, grabbing a blanket and sitting down next to him. She didn't say anything and Phil just wished she would as each second passed with a new form of agony with nothing to distract him, and his mind was just running too fast to come up with something to say-

“So how long have you been here?” Rita asked.

“Two hundred years, give or take,” Phil replied immediately. “I haven’t really been lucid the whole time.”

Something akin to realization dawned on her face. “So when you asked me about Pittsburgh…”

“Don’t. I get how embarrassing it is, okay?”

“That’s not embarrassing, it’s-” She sighed. “That sounds like it sucks. You’ve been controlling the weather in town the whole time?”

“Mhm.”

“What’s that like?”

“It’s easier certain times of the year. Things like rain, snow… it’s pretty natural. Kind of like breathing. All I really have to do is keep myself calm. Shit like warm weather is less natural.”

“How so?”

He hummed, wincing at the spasm that went through his shoulder. “I dunno. I’m just no good at it. My sister has always been at lot better with it.”

Rita brushed against him. “You have a sister?”

“You kidding? I’ve got loads of siblings. Mostly half siblings. They all suck.”

“Is your… sister also a weather deity?”

“Yea. She’s probably the one that’s taken over now that I’m gone. Used to just do mild stuff, but I guess I forced her hand, huh?”

Rita appeared to be regretting this path that they'd gone down. He had no clue as to _why_ exactly, but he wasn't really having a blast either. At least it was better than the static nothing left in silence.

“Okay, so…” Rita squinted at him. “What's the deal with climate change?”

“You know that weather and climate are different, right? You work at a weather show.”

“Well, _yea_ , I know that, but if you guys control the weather then why don't you just chill with the hurricanes and stuff?”

“I haven't really been outside of this bubble since climate change started kicking, but gods don't exist in a void. Shit you do affects us, so congratulations on climate change still being your fault. It just makes us… _moody_.”

“Moody?” She parroted.

“That's what I said. And since our powers are at least in part connected with emotion…” Phil waved a hand. “Hurricanes and stuff.”

“So, what, humans are giving your sister a mood disorder?”

He snorted. “I guess you could put it like that. It'd probably affect me too if I got out of here but…” A wave of hyper awareness rolled over him, drawing attention to the shaking still running through his limbs, the severed connections in his mind. Phil swallowed hard.

“Well that's going to suck.”

Phil blinked. “Going to?”

“Yea? You're gonna get out of here someday, they won't keep you locked up like a family embarrassment.” She didn't need to be so dead on with her phrasing. “Uh, what else can you do? Is it just the weather stuff or do you have other things in your tool kit?”

“All gods can erase memories, for one thing.”

Rita blanched, a guarded look flashing over her demeanor. “You haven't done that to me, right?”

“Of course not, you would have noticed the discrepancies by now anyways.” Just focus, breathe, stay grounded. “We can also all turn into and talk to animals, but not all of us are good with them.”

“Wait, so if you wanted to _right now_ you could turn into a bird or something?”

He didn’t say anything. She flinched.

“Oh, right, you said…”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay, one more question,” Rita hummed. “When’s your birthday?”

“Summer.”

“ _Summer_?”

“Yea? We didn’t exactly have the Gregorian calendar a few million years ago. The extent of my knowledge is that I appeared on this planet during the summer.”

Rita pouted, swinging her feet back and forth. “How am I supposed to visit you for your birthday if you don’t have one?”

A sharp spike of guilt stabbed through his chest. Phil drew in a slow breath. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure.” Rita was too nice. “Do you get to choose what you’re the god of? Don’t answer that, actually, I’ve asked you too many questions already.” There was a long period of time before she spoke again. “I think that I’d be a goddess of poetry, if I was one, that is,” She finally mused.

Phil laughed, not much more than a short sigh of breath. “Check your ego, Hanson.” 

“Oh, right, says you. You aren’t allowed to tell me to check my ego.” Another harsh pang against his ribs. “Besides, it’s less about my skills and more about what I’d want to see in the words. You know, inspire people to write poetry. Be the source of something new and beautiful.” 

“...That’s pretty damn poetic in its own right.”

“See? What’d I tell you.” Rita shifted onto her knees, tugging off his jacket. “Alright, you need to get some rest. You can use the bed, I’ll be fine with sleeping on the chair for the night.”

He grimaced. “I don’t need sleep.”

“After the shit you just went through? Yes you do.” She finally got the jacket off and tossed it to the corner where her own coat was.

“Y'know this isn't how I thought you'd be taking off my clothes.”

“Okay, stop. I know you're in a bad place right now, but if you make one more comment like that I won't hesitate to throw you out.”

“Right. Sorry.” He was such a bad person. Even in the midst of self loathing he still managed to pull through and be an asshole. Why couldn’t he just _stop_? “Can you help me up?”

“Sure.” Rita looped an arm under his and pulled him up to dump him onto the bed. “Shit, sorry, are you okay?”

“Yup,” Phil said through gritted teeth. “Doin’ great.”

“Just get some sleep, okay? I’m sure everything will be better when you wake up.”

That seemed like a huge long shot. Humans were always so ready to insist on cures, to grasp for thin threads of hope. This was bullshit, and the only reason he was playing along was because he’d already fucked up Rita’s life.

That didn’t stop him from falling asleep within ten minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhhhhh i'm really sorry i've stopped with the regular updating! I've been having writers block that's kind of been keeping me from writing more than thirty minute bursts. I've also maybe fucked up the planned pacing of the story but that's a lesser problem. I literally refuse to abandon this story and I'm going to finish it if it kills me.
> 
> Kudos are great but comments are even better!
> 
> Maybe check out my writing blog @lilac-lying or my ghd blog @hope-for-phil-connors

**Author's Note:**

> WOW that summary needs work but y'know fuck me i guess! I'll try to work on that, and maybe a different title that's not a Road to El Dorado reference. I've now got the entire fic planned all the way to the end, which is the most planning I've ever done for any writing thing, so y'all get ready for that.
> 
> Kudos are awesome, but comments are even better! Check out my writing blog @lilac-lying and my ghd blog @hope-for-phil-connors on tumblr!


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